Feb 05 bulletin - University of the West of England

FBE awarded
contract to
deliver new
course in
Spatial Planning
NEWS
The Faculty of the Built
Environment has been awarded a
contract to devise and deliver a
new course in Spatial Planning. As
part of the culture change
initiative, the Office of the Deputy
Prime Minister (ODPM) wants all
new and existing planners to
change their way of thinking about
planning, moving way from an
entirely land-use based system to
create a more inclusive and
integrative activity to deliver the
policies contained in the new
planning policy statement,
‘Delivering Sustainable
Development’.
The most exciting part of the
contract is that UWE will be helping
to define new concepts in planning
for implementation by practitioners
who need to ‘re-adjust their
thinking and ways of working’
(ODPM, 2005). Furthermore, the
new inter-disciplinary approach will
involve staff from Faculties other
than Built Environment, many of
whom have already shown an
interest in the project.
The aim is to deliver a flexible,
web-based, distance learning course
in a format which allows for
continuous professional
development through to a Master’s
qualification or even professional
doctorate via the accumulation of
credit. The ODPM was impressed
with the team effort, which
brought together suggestions for
academic content alongside a track
record of providing web-based
learning packages.
The project leader is Janet Askew,
and if you would like to contribute
to cross-Faculty discussions on this
subject, please contact her at
Janet.Askew@uwe.ac.uk.
‘Detroit: Ruin of a city’
Professor Michael Chanan (HLSS) and George Steinmetz (University of Michigan)
have produced a unique documentary about Detroit and its ruination, which is
being previewed in Bristol on 6 March and premiered at the University of Michigan
two weeks later.
The film is a collaboration between Professor Chanan, who is a seasoned filmmaker,
sociologist George Steinmetz, with music by the composer Michael Nyman,
who is well known for his many film scores. All three of them will attend a special
preview of the film at the Watershed in Bristol on 6 March, presented by Bristol
Docs.
Known as the Motor City, home of Henry Ford and the giants of the US
automobile industry, of ‘the brown bomber’ Joe Louis, of Motown and Eminem,
Detroit is nowadays in seemingly terminal decline, and the most segregated major
city in the USA, where an annual ritual takes place known as ‘Devil’s Night’, in
which people go out on the eve of Halloween and set fire to houses, buildings and
cars.
With the participation of Detroit artist Tyree Guyton, French sociologist Loic
Wacquant, Detroit born writer Dan Georgakas, and a variety of local residents, the
film traces the rise and fall of the social system known by sociologists as ‘Fordism’,
the way the city was shaped by the automobile, and its decline following the
deindustrialisation which began in the 1950s.
Much of the story is told through a rich variety of archive footage – of the Ford
plants, mass protests of the Depression years, Diego Rivera painting his famous
mural ‘Detroit Industry’, the struggle for trade union rights, the riots of 1967 –
through which the film charts the battle over the image of the city and its industry
that began when the Ford Motor Company started making its own films back in
1914.
Speaking about the film, Professor Chanan says, “We’ve called it a documentary
road movie because if you go to Detroit, you can only get around by car, which is
true of many US cities but in Detroit it becomes symbolic because this is Motor City,
so it seemed right that we should film in and from the cars we travelled round in.”
For details of the Watershed screening and how to get tickets go to
www.watershed.co.uk or go to http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/BristolDocs/
For full details of
• Michael Chanan’s other film work see www.mchanan.dial.pipex.com
• for George Steinmetz see http://www.lsa.umich.edu/soc/directories/
show-person.asp?PeopleID=40
• for Michael Nyman, see www.michaelnyman.com
(above) Michigan Theater
interior in Detroit
(left) Detroit
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